Remembering Malayalam actor Sharanya Sasi through her YouTube videos

The 33-year-old Sharanya, who was diagnosed with brain cancer eight years ago, developed pneumonia after contracting COVID-19 and passed away on August 9.
Sharanya Sasi
Sharanya Sasi
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"Love without boundaries is not a myth, I have been experiencing that. To feel that, we should deserve it," said Sharanya Sasi, Malayalam film and tv serial actor, in a YouTube video in February 2021. In the same video, a little later, she narrated an incident of how when she was in Class 9, she and two of her friends ran away from home after they failed their half-yearly examinations. They made their way from Koothuparambu of Kannur to Sharanya's grandparents’ house in Erumapetty of Pattambi.

However, that was the last time Sharanya either feared or ran away from any of her troubles. The actor who passed away on August 9 after developing COVID-19-related pneumonia, was diagnosed with brain cancer eight years ago and underwent nine surgeries. But, during that time she never gave up.

In fact, seven months before she died, Sharanya started a YouTube channel, titled CityLights-Sharanya's Vlog. Her followers saw a new Sharanya on screen. Many of her fans could not recognise her as she struggled to talk, due to speech problems after her surgeries. But people loved her videos and admired the fighter she was in spite of all her difficulties.

Among the 30 videos uploaded on the channel, Sharanya appears in 24. In all of them, she is smiling. Even in her last few videos, where her illness is evident to viewers, she is still seen smiling and happy.

In the videos, she reminisces about her life, shares stories, and talks about her daily routine. But on March 21, she wasn’t seen in the video that was uploaded on her channel. Instead, we saw her mother who said that Sharanya was unwell again and she would need another surgery soon. Her mother said in the video that everyone believed Sharanya was cured, as she had regained her lost memory and speech.

Sharanya last appeared in a video on March 19. In the video, she wore a yellow dress and seemed very happy that she received a lot of birthday gifts from her followers. Though she spoke slowly, she thanked everyone who sent a gift. In the video, she also shared visuals of Nandu Mahadeva, an amputee and a cancer patient–who was famous on social media for his campaigns to help others– visiting her at home. Nandu succumbed to cancer on March 15.

During the seven months that she made videos, we saw glimpses of her life— her excitement at tasting special dishes her mother cooked, interacting with former minister Kadakampally Surendran who visited her, and even watched her celebrate her birthday at a home for children with disabilities. Her channel gained a good number of subscribers and followers, who praised her courage and spirit. Sharanya's YouTube channel had 4.9 lakh subscribers and some of her videos had more than a million views. Her inspiring story and never-give-up attitude will always be remembered fondly by her fans.

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